Oil industry pushing for Congress — not Obama — to set enviromental regs

Oil and gas industry leaders are pinning their hopes on Congress to overrule Obama administration decisions on offshore drilling and environmental regulation, even as lawmakers get shut out of more of those moves.

“Key decisions . . . should not be made by unelected bureaucrats,” said Jack Gerard, president of the American Petroleum Institute , in a phone call with reporters Monday. “These decisions should be made by the Congress of the United States.”

The industry is still bristling from the White House’s decision last week to reverse course on offshore drilling and block exploration in federal waters along the Atlantic Coast and in the eastern Gulf of Mexico as part of the government’s 2012-2017 outer continental shelf lease plan.

Some lawmakers want to hold oversight hearings examining the policy reversal next year. But oil and gas lobbyists want Congress to go further and are pushing lawmakers to pass legislation that would force the administration to hold lease sales in those now-walled-off areas.

“We intend to work with both the Department (of Interior) and the Hill,” Gerard said, adding that “congressional action and oversight are needed.”

“We will pursue whatever avenues we think are best for the American people and what we think will be the best for our nation to help it recover (economically) and provide the oil and gas we need,” Gerard said.

Industry advocates also have been imploring Congress to give the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement the money it needs to swiftly implement new safety rules and process well permits — but without hiking offshore drilling fees to do it.

In a letter to appropriators on Capitol Hill , the Independent Petroleum Association of America noted that “the oil and natural gas industry contributes billions of dollars each year to the federal treasury” and some of that “could pay to increase staffing and funding at BOEMRE.”

With Republicans taking control of the House next year and the Democrats’ newly narrow hold on the Senate, the administration is expected to circumvent any gridlock on Capitol Hill by advancing more of its energy and environmental policies through executive agencies. For instance, the Environmental Protection Agency is set to begin regulating greenhouse gas emissions from industrial facilities and other stationary sources on Jan. 1.

Gerard said he was counting on “bipartisan leaders on the Hill (to) take exception” with any administration attempts to use federal agencies to advance “an ideological agenda . . . that is inconsistent with where the people want them to go.”

“The bipartisan leadership on Capitol Hill will review those actions very closely,” Gerard said. “If there are efforts to take this purely through a regulatory front, I think those elected officials in Congress will have something to say about it.”